


Ecdysis

by qthelights



Category: Teen Wolf (TV) RPF
Genre: Acting, Character Bleed, Comfort, Comfort Sex, Cunnilingus, F/M, Friendship, Hand Jobs, Just Friends, Masturbation, On Set, RPF, Stress Relief, Trailer Sex, fatigue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 23:11:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qthelights/pseuds/qthelights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's hard to shake the confines of a character, to find yourself after someone yells 'cut'.</p><p>Sometimes, you need a little help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ecdysis

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the story I thought I'd be entering Teen Wolf fandom with - it isn't Sterek or Hobrien and it isn't even slash! But it was one of those things where the idea wouldn't let me go.

Holland reaches her trailer and steps up into the warmth and light with a palpable sense of relief flooding her limbs. With the door closed behind her, she lets her shoulders droop, head falling forward until her chin rests against her chest and her hair tumbles in a curtain around her. 

Fuck. 

Anyone who says acting is _easy_ has never had to act. Sure, the everyday scenes are fun and, most of the time, not all that hard when everything is going right, but the emotional scenes, the ones actors supposedly live for? They beat the shit out of you. 

Filming just wrapped on one of the final scenes of the season: Jackson’s metamorphosis from kanima to werewolf, which pretty much relies entirely on Lydia’s vulnerability and Holland’s acting. She likes what she did with it, standard acting anxieties aside, but crying for hours on end, take after take, has left her raw, her edges ragged and frayed. It doesn’t help that her method is to imagine the worst possible things that she can think of happening to her family and friends. She’ll have nightmares this week, no question. 

She shrugs off Lydia’s cardigan, the cream lace dropping to the floor in a leaden puddle. With a hand on the back of the couch, she strips out of the black pants and adds them to the pile. Despite no longer wearing her clothes, Lydia is still tight, woven tight around her skin like a corset. It’s suffocating.

The quick shower she manages in the tight confines of the bathroom does nothing to relieve the ache of pent-up emotion in her chest. The feelings may not be based in reality, but they affect her as if they are. As if she just lost the love of her life and watched them turn into a monster. Lydia may have recovered; Holland has not had the luxury.

In the mirror her eyes are red, mascara smudged. Her hair is wet and curled at the ends where she hasn’t managed to dodge the water. She pulls on the first things she finds in the pile of clothing from the sofa, an oversized tee and a skirt, not caring if they match. It’s late; she’s only going home anyway. 

There’s a soft knock at the door and she bites back the sigh. It better not be Posey; she’s wound way too tight to deal with his particular brand of energy right now. Unless he brings weed with him. S’about a 50/50 chance. 

But it isn’t Posey at the door when she opens it; it’s Dylan, standing on the bottom step and looking up at her with big eyes. The fake blood that was painted meticulously onto his cheekbone is smudged downwards like a red streak of rouge and the lights from inside the trailer make his eyes sparkle, even with the fatigue clouding them.

“Hey,” he says, just as tiredly as he looks and sways slightly on his feet. “Just wanted to check you were okay.”

She laughs and it only sounds slightly wrong. “I’m fine.”

Dylan’s mouth does this thing where it sort of _twists_. “Liar. You’re just as wrecked as me.”

She recognises the truth in it; Dylan has been through the wringer as much as her this week. She saw him yesterday as he said goodbye to Linden after the Sheriff-son scenes, the way the usual back-pat bro hug had been dispensed with for a proper two-armed one. The way they clung together just a moment too long for a father and son not borne of genetics or history.

As it is, Dylan still looks beyond spent; his face is gaunt, shadows and bone, and his laugh lines are pulled tight in the corners of his eyes. He’s still in Stiles’ gray t-shirt and red Beacon Hills sweats. Holland steps back with a slight nod in deference to his observational skills and he steps up into the trailer. 

It’s funny, but she always forgets Dylan is tall compared to the rest of them, equal or on par with Hoechlin. He always looks so skinny and slight as Stiles, ready to blow over at a slight breeze, but he’s really not, especially when taking up the already-claustrophobic space in the trailer with her.

She slumps onto the tiny sofa against the wall and he does the same, bumping his shoulder into hers companionably and settling in, legs out in front of him and crossed at the ankle. He’s seemingly at ease in the small sea of her abandoned clothing. She thinks he has a sister, has mentioned one sometime, and maybe that explains it. His hands rest in his lap, left forefinger and middle finger tapping an uneven rhythm on the back of his right hand. She fights the urge to still them with her own.

“So how do you shake it?” he asks after a moment of silence, voice quiet in the enclosed space. 

It’s with a sharp tug in her chest that Holland remembers Dylan’s only twenty and still painfully new to this acting gig. He’s never had anyone to mentor him, to tell him what’s normal. He’s so good they all tend to forget he doesn’t have years of rejection and experience backing it up.

“Sometimes I can’t,” she answers honestly, shrugging. 

Dylan snorts softly and side-eyes her, exactly the way she’d seen him do as Stiles during the father-son hero scene with Linden. “That isn’t very comforting.”

She huffs, a soft amused murmur of sound. “Well, there are a lots of ways. You just gotta find the one that works to get _you_ out of your head.”

“Such as?”

“Well, sometimes hitting the gym helps. Burning it off.”

Dylan looks horrified and she grins before continuing. “Or a long shower. Getting away from the job. Sex.”

“Sex? Really?” he asks, eyebrow arching at her in a way that makes her want to blush. 

She swats at his arm. “What? Of course, sex. Anything that stops you thinking.”

Dylan seems to consider that a moment. “Does that work for you?”

“Sure,” she replies simply. “When it’s an option, it’s great.” 

“And isn’t it? An option, I mean?” Dylan asks.

If it were anyone else, she’d probably take offense, but this cast long ago dispensed with anything so trivial as personal boundaries. He’s looking at her openly, genuinely quizzical.

Holland snorts. “With who?”

This time it’s Dylan who blushes, rosy-pink circles of embarrassment colouring his cheeks. “Um, well, Colton...I mean, you’re close, right?”

“You’d think, right?” she says, can’t help the bitterness that the fatigue lets slip into her tone. “Apparently we’re too close for that to be a wise decision.”

Dylan’s mouth falls open, plump lower lip just _there_ , and not for the first time Holland wonders if he knows how he looks when he does that. How much he epitomises sex and innocence all wrapped up in one impossible package. His eyebrows have furrowed in consternation.

“That’s...huh. What an idiot,” he says.

She agrees, but keeps it to herself. She fiddles with the edge of her top, rolling it between Lydia’s perfectly manicured nails. “He’s probably right, to be cautious. We’d be kinda bereft if we didn’t have each other anymore. If we screwed it up.”

“Yeah but, this-,” he gestures up and down at his body, at what she presumes he means as his character laced around him, “-fucking sucks. Why wouldn’t he want to help you?”

It’s an innocent question, or so Dylan thinks, and it makes her smile. His unbelievably sweet loyalty and cock-eyed optimism is as unstoppable as a freight train with its brakes cut. It’s adorable and should make him seem impossibly young, yet somehow he pulls it off, manages to project mature reasoning instead of teenage inexperience. Most of the time, anyway. Christ, he’s going to be lethal someday.

“Oh, honey,” she says fondly, “sometimes people just don’t get it. Some people can just cast it off when the director yells ‘cut’. Some people can cry and not feel it. You and I? Not those people.”

“Bastards,” Dylan spits, but it’s pretend malice and utterly exhausted.

“Right?” she agrees, bumping her shoulder against his in solidarity.

They sit in silence. It’s comfortable and it also isn’t, both of them vibrating with the effort of keeping it together but too exhausted to fight it off for long. She gives in, just a little, and rests her head against the bony jut of his shoulder. She waits for him to tense, maybe, but he doesn’t, just hums contently and settles against her. Dylan is warm and familiar and she lets Lydia shift a bit, feels her start to slip from her bones.

Eventually Dylan’s fidgeting starts back up, leg bouncing in a very Stiles-ish way, fingers tapping in time. Holland sits back up again sending a tiny glare Dylan’s way and ready to gently throw him out and get some sleep. 

“Sorry,” he says, a rueful smile tucked in the corner of his lips. “I can’t seem to get rid of Stiles today.”

From the way the flight mechanism ingrained in her makes her want to run, the way her eyes hurt, the way her muscles refuse to let go, Holland totally empathises. She pushes him until he’s up off the sofa. “Go home, Dyl. Sleep, play video games, get high with Posey. Don’t drink, though, that never works. You just sink further in and before you know it you’re being wheeled out of an apartment on a gurney.”

“Good to know,” he remarks sarcastically with a raised eyebrow. But he lets her manhandle him up and shuffles to the door. 

He turns to her where she’s still lounging, presumably to say goodnight, but then stops. He’s watching her, one hand on the door latch, eyes dark and considering. 

He shakes, like a dog shedding water from its coat, and she’s about to ask what’s wrong, when he speaks. “I don’t think alcohol would...” he begins, then stops and takes a step back into her space.

“What?” she asks, staring up at him as he towers above her. 

“I think...” he says, and it almost sounds shy, which Dylan hasn’t been around her in a long time.

He makes a strange abortive gesture between them and suddenly sinks to a crouch in front of her, balanced on the balls of his feet. For a second she doesn’t comprehend, and then Dylan’s hands are on her knees, tentative and careful.

“Uh, you said sex works, right?” he asks her, his hands, his fingers, sliding downwards softly over the inside of her knees. 

Her breath catches in her throat, stoppered by the scratchy lump from the day’s tears and her own sudden surprise. Then again, of anyone in the cast, of course it would be Dylan who would simply _offer_ it to help her out. Suddenly she feels a little like Colton must have felt, turning her down the one time she’d been miserable enough to try.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the thought, honey,” she starts, and she can see the way his warm brown eyes shutter at the rejection he can sense, “but I don’t know that it’s a good idea.”

“You only call me ‘honey’ when you think I’m young,” Dylan remarks, but there’s still a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. 

Holland snorts. “Well, you kinda are,” she teases. Even though there’s little difference between them in a grander sense, she’s found there is often a big difference between someone just out of their teens and someone in their mid-twenties. It’s just a life-experience thing, she thinks. It’s why she won’t date younger.

Dylan grins, and the smile is so wide and instantaneous that okay yeah, Holland is woman enough to admit it maybe _does things_ to her. 

“Dude,” Dylan remarks, sounding entirely like Posey, “if you’re worried you’re taking away my virtue, I might _seem_ like a virgin - and thanks by the way,” he segues sarcastically, “- but I really only play one on TV.” 

He punctuates the statement by brushing the pads of his thumbs up the smooth skin of her inner thighs with intent and she can’t help the full body shudder that winds down her spine.

“A mouth like yours? I know you aren’t a virgin, Dyl,” she quips back, unconsciously splaying her legs a little bit wider.

His laugh is a bark of amusement that echoes loudly in the room. “Yeah?” he says, sensing she’s given in, and lets face it, she kinda knows she has. He slips from his crouch to his knees. “Thought about my mouth before, Holland?”

“Eh,” she feigns Lydia’s disinterest. “You use it to talk a lot.”

“Oh really?” He grins, eyebrow arching at the challenge. His hands slide upwards, rucking her skirt up higher and then he’s bending to her knee, placing an open-mouthed kiss against the soft skin on the inside.

“Well, I’m going to be thinking about it doing other things _now_ ,” she says, breath hitching. 

A low hum of approval is all she gets in reply from Dylan as he gently, so fucking gently, begins to move. His lips are soft, his tongue wet, licking and sucking and basically lavishing attention along her thigh. With a shuddery sigh she forces herself to relax back into the sofa, to close her eyes and focus on the feel of his mouth on her. 

There’s a soft scratch of barely-there stubble whispering against her skin, making it tingle before it’s soothed with the plump softness of Dylan’s lips. She can feel the heat coming off his skin against her legs, his breath hotter still and it matches the building warmth of want between her legs. His hands slide up further still, exposing the black lace of her underwear and leaving her exposed to the cool air of the trailer and the winter that seeps in through the thin metal of the room.

“Fuck, _Holland_ ,” Dylan breathes raggedly, nipping at her skin with his teeth in a way that makes her jump and hold in a groan. 

She can see the way Dylan’s already tenting the maroon fabric of Stiles’ sweats, unsurprising given the way _Stiles_ must have had tension thrumming through him and begging for release even before this turn of events, and it makes a surge of _need_ flood through her on the back of adrenaline.

“Yeah,” she murmurs and spreads her legs wide for him, wantonly urging him further. 

Dylan takes the cue, instantly pushing his hands and her skirt up to her waist with a little shimmy of her hips to help, and then his nose is pressing at the seam of her, nosing into the wet heat hidden by the scrap of her underwear. 

“Fuck.” It’s apparently her turn to say it as Dylan hitches her forward, warm hands broad and curving around her hips and ass, bringing his face into harder contact with her. He breathes out against her and if his breath is hot, his tongue is scorching as it follows against the already-soaked material.

His fingers are firm as they curl around the material, pull it to the side, and then Dylan’s mouth is on her, his tongue, those lips, scooping into her like she’s a fucking ice-cream sundae and moaning as he tastes her. 

“Oh my god. Off,” she says and Dylan pulls back, momentarily confused until she makes it clear she’s talking about the underwear, not him, pushing herself up and sliding the black fabric over her hips. 

He gets with the program quickly, taking over and sliding them down her legs. He takes the time to extricate her feet, first one, then the other, before slinging the underwear aside and she thinks it’s such a telling gesture, that he always goes that bit extra; he could have left them around her ankles, or around one ankle at least, but no, he took them entirely off her, like it was _important_. 

He looks up at her for a second, eyes blown black and mouth pink and wet from her and it’s maybe an entirely inappropriate thought to have of a guy who’s eating you out in what can only be described as a sinfully hot way, but fuck it: he’s _adorable_. The way his eyelashes flutter down, dark smudges against pale skin when he blinks, slowly, as if drugged, the literal stars in his eyes as the downlights reflect in the inky blackness of his pupils. 

And then he smiles, dark and wicked, and all thoughts of cuteness fly away. 

“You totally taste like strawberries. Stiles would _love_ that,” he quips before darting back in, his mouth descending quickly, tongue delving and lapping. He twists it and slides up, catching her clit, causing her to moan and her legs to jerk. 

Dylan’s hands find her calves without looking, sliding up to her knees and then he’s lifting them, hooking her legs around his shoulders and yeah, fuck, he’s done this before, probably a lot, and Holland groans at the thought as Stiles bleeds into the background and Dylan takes front and centre. 

She’s moaning with each swipe of his tongue and trying to keep it quiet. The trailers are not much more than glorified tin after all and anyone standing directly next to it could hear her. She can’t not, though. Not when Dylan zeroes in on her clit, teasing and flicking at her with his tongue, alternating to smooth, long swipes that make her toes curl. 

The tension is ratcheting higher up her spine as she writhes under his ministrations, and she locks her ankles behind his head to keep from flying off the seat. He just holds her closer, hands sliding to support her lower back. She lets one of her own reach to his hair, scratching through the short cut of it, wishing it were longer so she could grab and hold and _pull_. His hair is soft against her thighs, though, where his head is cradled between them.

One of his hands moves off her back and he pulls away just a bit, breathing in much-needed air and, she realises a beat and a half later, allowing room for his hand. 

She barely has time to take in a shaky breath before there are fingers, teasing and sliding in the slick wetness of her, pressing in with gentle force. Dylan’s mouth returns to her clit as he fucks her with his fingers, steady and curled. She can’t hold on, not with the mental image and the physical feel, not with Lydia’s pain and sadness threatening to overwhelm her as she fights to shed it and claim back _Holland_.

And then Dylan is pursing his lips around her clit and _sucking_ and that’s it, she’s done. Her orgasm tightens in her abdomen, building with a force she barely recognises, and with a shudder and cry it’s pulsing through her, over and over between her legs and sending cold tingling shudders down her limbs, curling her toes.

Dylan is licking her, softening his touch to barely-there licks around her clit, then sticking to the edges of her, drinking her in. Holland’s head is back against the wall when she comes back to herself and her legs have dropped from Dylan’s shoulders. She’s pretty much the epitome of wanton abandonment, knees splayed and skirt around her waist.

She looks down, when she has enough energy to lift her head and holy fuck, she feels a remnant pulse of pleasure throb half-heartedly at the sight of Dylan between her legs. He’s levered down his sweat pants and his shorts and his cock is in his hand, hard and flushed red as he jacks himself off.

Belatedly, Holland realises she should help, offer to do it for him or blow him, though the thought seems weirdly intimate. ‘Weird’ because they’ve well and truly crossed the intimacy line, surely, what with his tongue having been buried deep inside her only moments before. 

It’s irrelevant though because she’s frozen, can’t move her eyes from the image in front of her. At the way Dylan is staring at her, eyes hooded as he fucks into his hand. His fingers are wet around his cock and she moans deep and reckless as she realises they’re wet with _her_ , that he’s fucking into her juices and his own precome.

“Jesus,” Dylan groans at the noise, slamming his eyes shut and increasing the pace of his hand. She’s mesmerised by the sight of his cock sliding through the circle of his fingers, the way his breathing is starting to hitch and stutter.

His knees must be killing him, she thinks randomly, only for the thought to be cut off as Dylan grunts, stutters, and comes, spilling over his hand and onto the floor of her trailer. 

He slumps, a puppet with cut strings, his forehead resting on her knee. They’re quiet, the only sound the ragged breathing as their heart rates come down and sweat cools on their skin. 

Eventually Dylan moves, pulling back and smiling at her almost shyly, which just makes her want to laugh. Because _seriously_. This kid is going to kill someone someday, no question. She hands him one of her t-shirts from the pile around her and he looks grateful, cleaning himself off quickly and then swiping at the floor with a grimace.

“So that was...” he starts, tucking himself back into his pants and grinning wryly at her. She shifts and he’s immediately there, pulling her skirt back down to cover her up. 

“Mmm,” she murmurs on the back of a sigh, and hopes it doesn’t sound quite so blissfully fucked-out as she feels. “Thank you.”

Dylan grins. “Not really a hardship.”

Holland laughs and it feels good. The ache in her chest has lifted and she feels light and unencumbered. “How do you feel?” she asks.

Dylan seems to consider this a moment before speaking. “Like I need to get into my own clothes now,” he says, glancing down at the remnants of Stiles he’s dressed in. 

“See, totally works,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s the endorphin release or something.”

“Or something.” Dylan grins and then he’s pushing up off the floor, a hand to either side of her on the sofa for leverage. “Do you want me to wash...?” he asks, indicating her now soiled shirt. 

“Nah, just throw it over there,” she says standing on her own wobbly legs and pointing at the laundry bag she has going on in the corner. 

He throws it in and then stands a little awkwardly at the door. “Do you need a lift home?” he asks.

“Ever the gentleman.” She smirks and stands on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “It’s okay, I have a car coming in-,” she glances at the clock on the far wall, “-ten minutes ago.”

He nods and then smiles at her, pulling her into a hug. “Thanks,” he mutters against her hair.

She tightens her arms around his waist in response. He lets her go and then seems to reconsider the whole leaving thing a second time, turns and quickly ducks in, placing a soft kiss against her mouth. 

“See you tomorrow,” he says, smiling wide and happy. 

Holland just laughs and pushes him out of her trailer. 

She gathers her phone and laundry, because no, that is not staying there any longer now, then finds her bag where it’s squashed under some cushions. Lydia’s clothes are still on the floor and for a moment she considers them, wondering if she should borrow any of them from Wardrobe. The boys have nothing on their hangers but stuff they’ve worn in the show. The lace thing is pretty, but isn’t her, too pretty and old-fashioned at the same time. She likes her clothes a bit less constricting, with a bit more sex. Elegant, but hot.

She leaves them on the floor to be collected by Laundry and flips the switch. The trailer goes dark.

Across the lot she sees Dylan, Posey and Hoechlin meandering towards the car lot, Posey dragging his feet and demanding loudly that Dylan play Halo with them the second they get home - like both of those kids won’t be asleep the second they get in the car. Dylan nods peaceably for Posey’s benefit, but shares something with Hoechlin that makes the man throw his head back and laugh.

Dylan turns to slap Posey on the back and sees Holland where she stands watching. The smile he sends her is all Dylan, broad and full of love. It’s platonic, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s how it should be.

The smile she sends back is all Holland.


End file.
